Speaker 1: You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Garth. Hello, friends,
Speaker 1: welcome to I Choose Me. I'm really happy to be
Speaker 1: here with you. Thanks for tuning in. Okay, I believe
Speaker 1: in journaling. I've talked about it. You may already know that.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I do it just to empty my ramp at mine.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I do it to get the feelings out of
Speaker 1: my body and it helps me see things more clearly
Speaker 1: and my body just feels lighter. I need that sometimes.
Speaker 1: The other day I sat down with a stack of
Speaker 1: old journals I found in a drawer and I ended
Speaker 1: up getting super sucked in. They were all kinds of
Speaker 1: ramblings on those pages. There was a lot of blah
Speaker 1: blah blah stuff. There was some big ideas for my
Speaker 1: future pages and pages of notes that I take from
Speaker 1: my Buddhist teachings class, which I can tell you guys,
Speaker 1: if you want me to. But there was also a
Speaker 1: lot of pain and loneliness and heartbreak, because yeah, that's
Speaker 1: pretty much what journals are for. So I thought I
Speaker 1: would share another journal entry with you. Who knows, maybe
Speaker 1: some of these crazy words will resonate with you on
Speaker 1: some level. This is what we are calling Jenny's journals.
Speaker 1: Here is one from see here. Oh, this is a
Speaker 1: good one. You know what. I'm sorry In advance there
Speaker 1: might be a couple of f words, just saying May
Speaker 1: twenty fifth, twenty nineteen. Oof, Am I stuck? I feel
Speaker 1: this energy literally stuck inside me. I can actually close
Speaker 1: my eyes and visualize it. I can see a giant
Speaker 1: boulder wedged in a crevice. I can also see beautiful
Speaker 1: nature all around as far as the eye can see
Speaker 1: a lake, a waterfall, a deer sipping from a creek. Oh.
Speaker 1: I just painted such a lovely picture anyway, But this
Speaker 1: rock is stuck. Nothing I do seems to affect it.
Speaker 1: I exercise, I spend time in nature. I have a
Speaker 1: healthy family and a loving husband. We're still in our
Speaker 1: honeymoon phase. I think, Ah, yes, this was twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1: Even all that good stuff isn't dislodging it. I am
Speaker 1: doing every single thing I have learned that's supposed to
Speaker 1: help me out of a dip. That's what I call
Speaker 1: a depression. They can kind of come and go for me.
Speaker 1: I've returned to my Buddha classes. I'm trying to eat less,
Speaker 1: sugar less, drinking, connect more with my family, trying to
Speaker 1: stay focused on what brings others joy, trying to be
Speaker 1: more gentle and kind with myself. This feeling of being
Speaker 1: stuck isn't new. I've wandered so many times what is
Speaker 1: wrong with me? I feel pretty sure that the problem
Speaker 1: is all me and my brain. I've turned so far
Speaker 1: inward that I'm isolating and keeping everyone from loving me. Earlier,
Speaker 1: my daughter told me I was a narcissist. Oh and
Speaker 1: h is that true? Or was she just trying to
Speaker 1: hurt me? Because she's hurting. As I'm writing this, I
Speaker 1: can actually feel a weird rumbling inside me. The rumbling
Speaker 1: is moving the boulder ever so gently. I feel sad. Stella,
Speaker 1: this is the healer that I was working with at
Speaker 1: the time. Stella told me this would happen, that grief
Speaker 1: would start bubbling up in me and play a big
Speaker 1: part in this excavation process, the excavation of this rock
Speaker 1: inside me. This morning, it was my dad's death. I
Speaker 1: was thrust right into reliving it in my mind, reliving
Speaker 1: all of those horrible visuals and memories. Tears streamed down
Speaker 1: my face. Out of nowhere and now here I am.
Speaker 1: I snuck out of bed trying not to wake anyone,
Speaker 1: especially the dogs. They would attack me thinking I was
Speaker 1: an intruder and wake up everybody. So yeah, here I
Speaker 1: am on the green couch in my living room, just writing.
Speaker 1: Is this a journal or a diary? I don't even
Speaker 1: know whatever it is. I feel closer to this pen
Speaker 1: and paper than I do anyone on this earth right now,
Speaker 1: not including horses or dogs, or cats or any cute
Speaker 1: little animals. Really sorry, snakes, I just can't love you.
Speaker 1: You know what. I probably could if I tried, but
Speaker 1: I don't want to. Okay, let's stay on topic. As
Speaker 1: I'm sitting here on this couch writing what my daughter
Speaker 1: said about me, I'm feeling the rock shifting as I
Speaker 1: wrote that down here on these pages a minute ago.
Speaker 1: I'm feeling a torrent of pain come over me. There
Speaker 1: is no fighting it off. But you know what, that's okay.
Speaker 1: I need to feel this stuff. I rush and worry
Speaker 1: and work and provide for my family all damn day.
Speaker 1: I try to be available to everyone, anyone who needs me.
Speaker 1: I'm not making any time for myself. It's these kinds
Speaker 1: of eruptions that I've been feeling over the past two
Speaker 1: weeks since I met with Stella eruptions of feeling my
Speaker 1: feelings and allowing myself to acknowledge them and actually sit
Speaker 1: with them. It feels like they're just hurting me all
Speaker 1: over again. This is hard. I am learning to be
Speaker 1: gentle on myself. The little girl Jenny that lives inside me.
Speaker 1: She's feeling so scared and afraid right now. Ooh, that's
Speaker 1: a heavy one, you guys. But that's what journaling is for.
Speaker 1: You're supposed to take those moments when there are no
Speaker 1: words and you don't want to talk to anyone, you
Speaker 1: don't want anyone else to know what you're really going through,
Speaker 1: and you're supposed to write it down and get it
Speaker 1: out so you can maybe feel better. So that was
Speaker 1: a journal entry from twenty nineteen, and that was clearly
Speaker 1: a rough period for me. Leaving through those old journals
Speaker 1: has got me feeling them all over a little bit again,
Speaker 1: so that doesn't feel very good. It also made me
Speaker 1: feel grateful, though, for all the ups and the downs
Speaker 1: that I've been through, because every one of them has
Speaker 1: made me stronger and more resilient. Growth is painful. Change
Speaker 1: is hard, but it's actually not as painful as feeling stuck,
Speaker 1: feeling loaded down, like there's a giant rock inside of you.
Speaker 1: I want to say this to you, don't give up.
Speaker 1: Everything happens for a reason in our lives, even if
Speaker 1: it doesn't make sense right now. You never know what
Speaker 1: you're going to learn along the way. You have to
Speaker 1: be ready for. You have to tackle it head on
Speaker 1: and be relentless in your desire to be the best
Speaker 1: version of yourselves. I don't remember this day. I do
Speaker 1: remember sneaking out to the green couch, but I don't
Speaker 1: remember writing all this, and I don't remember my daughter
Speaker 1: calling me that. But that's probably a good thing, and
Speaker 1: it's kind of weird to not remember these things, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think my brain has selective memory.
Speaker 1: So Stella was this world famous woman in La that
Speaker 1: was a spiritual healer. I don't remember who told me
Speaker 1: about her, and I drove to her house. She lives
Speaker 1: in the Hollywood Hills and I was real nervous going
Speaker 1: in there. It's always nervous starting with a new therapist
Speaker 1: or going to a new person to talk about your deepest,
Speaker 1: darkest feelings and insecurities and really hard. But she had
Speaker 1: this really hippy, dippy house in the hills, and there
Speaker 1: were wind chimes everywhere, and it had a little pretty
Speaker 1: view of the canyon, and I started. I sat outside
Speaker 1: for a little while before I went in. I sat
Speaker 1: outside on her deck and I I just took some
Speaker 1: deep breaths and calmed myself down and I started to
Speaker 1: feel pretty good. So I went in. She was gorgeous.
Speaker 1: When she answered the door. I was like, oh, hello, tall,
Speaker 1: beautiful lady. And then I felt a little insecure again,
Speaker 1: but I kept going. She brought me in was so kind.
Speaker 1: I met her cat. He was nice, and she laid
Speaker 1: me down on this mat in her office and told
Speaker 1: me to close my eyes and she just did some
Speaker 1: like crazy. I don't know what she was doing because
Speaker 1: my eyes were closed, but it felt like she was
Speaker 1: like scanning over my body with her hands, like trying
Speaker 1: to find getting touch with my energy and find my blockages,
Speaker 1: I guess. And she just did that for a really
Speaker 1: long time and didn't say anything, and at times I
Speaker 1: was laying there thinking, is anything happening? Is this helping?
Speaker 1: This costs a lot and my game my money's worth.
Speaker 1: Then she told me to open my eyes and she
Speaker 1: had me go sit on a chair over there and
Speaker 1: we just sat there silently for a while, and then
Speaker 1: she started telling me what she felt where she felt
Speaker 1: the blockages, and it was crazy. It was so accurate
Speaker 1: and it was so right where I was, and she
Speaker 1: had no idea what I was dealing with when I
Speaker 1: went in there, I hadn't told her anything. And I
Speaker 1: left there I kind of dazed and confused and feeling
Speaker 1: weird in my body, like all the little bits of
Speaker 1: me were bubbling up inside of me somehow, like I
Speaker 1: was so unsettled. And she had told me that that
Speaker 1: would happen, and that I should be gentle with myself
Speaker 1: and tolerant and kind to any feelings that come up.
Speaker 1: So that's what I did after I saw her, and
Speaker 1: I only saw her one other time, I think, And
Speaker 1: the results sort of like happened slowly over time as
Speaker 1: the work that she had done sort of like integrated
Speaker 1: into my body and mind, and then it sort of
Speaker 1: started to manifest, and it was really incredible. I don't
Speaker 1: know what else to say about it. It was a
Speaker 1: really incredible experience. Do you guys want to know about
Speaker 1: my Buddha classes. I'm not a Buddhist, I'm not really
Speaker 1: any religion. I believe in spirit and energy and silly
Speaker 1: maybe to some things like angels, but that's my belief.
Speaker 1: And I've still I did a lot of different religions.
Speaker 1: I grew up Christian. I converted to Catholicism when I
Speaker 1: married Peter out of respect for his family. I'm married
Speaker 1: to a half Jewish man right now. And I've studied
Speaker 1: Gabala and Buddhism and all the things. I can't remember
Speaker 1: the name of it, but I've studied a lot. And
Speaker 1: this class that I go to in Hollywood, it's just
Speaker 1: as a place where you go and you listen to
Speaker 1: a teacher talk to you about the writings of a
Speaker 1: Buddhist monk and all the things that I have learned
Speaker 1: and heard in that class. I take vigorous notes because
Speaker 1: I have not a great memory, so I take notes
Speaker 1: the whole entire time someone's talking. And I go back
Speaker 1: and look at those notes now, and they every time
Speaker 1: I read them, they help me. They make me feel
Speaker 1: like I'm gonna be okay and I can handle things.
Speaker 1: And it's just the verbiage, the way the words are
Speaker 1: put together. They really resonated in my brain and made
Speaker 1: that sort of comprehension easier for me, and I was
Speaker 1: able to incorporate them into my everyday life and I
Speaker 1: love it. So if you're ever in La hit me up,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you about where to go. I was referencing
Speaker 1: a boulder in that entry. During other times of anxiousness
Speaker 1: in my life, I felt like there was an elephant
Speaker 1: sitting on my chest, like a big, fatty elephant, and
Speaker 1: he was just sitting there. She he, I don't know,
Speaker 1: just sitting there. And I kind of feel it right
Speaker 1: now when I'm talking about it, like just a pressure
Speaker 1: in the middle of my chest, and it makes it
Speaker 1: a little bit hard to breathe the more you focus
Speaker 1: on it. And for some reason, this entry was about
Speaker 1: a rock that I had felt inside of me was
Speaker 1: stifling me from speaking and communicating and expressing my feelings.
Speaker 1: And I really didn't like that feeling of that boulder
Speaker 1: sitting in me, so I knew I had to do
Speaker 1: work to get it out. And I think you have
Speaker 1: to be really brave to tackle these things. Sometimes you
Speaker 1: have to be brave to talk about that elephant or
Speaker 1: that boulder with someone, and you have to be courageous
Speaker 1: to take the steps to make the changes so you'll
Speaker 1: feel better. I also mentioned in that journal entry that
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen, it was weird Dave and I were
Speaker 1: still in our honeymoon phase. That's what they call it,
Speaker 1: right that, like a year after you get married. I
Speaker 1: think that's over. I'm not trying to be funny, but
Speaker 1: I do. I think that's past, as it does for everyone,
Speaker 1: probably in some way, at some level. But our love
Speaker 1: has evolved into a different phase. And that's what it's
Speaker 1: supposed to do, you know, because relationships are always growing
Speaker 1: and changing, and if they're not, then I think I
Speaker 1: would become bored. I would become complacent. And it's really
Speaker 1: important to me and hopefully woever I'm with that it
Speaker 1: keeps changing. Challenges keep coming up, and we keep facing
Speaker 1: them head on, and we work through them and reach
Speaker 1: another level in our relationship and another level and another level.
Speaker 1: And I think that feels good to me because I
Speaker 1: want to grow and I want my partner to grow,
Speaker 1: and I want our love to grow. I know I
Speaker 1: brought up my father's passing in this. He died in
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight and it's twenty twenty four. I
Speaker 1: don't do math, so I don't know how many years
Speaker 1: that is. But those feelings sometimes still come up, and
Speaker 1: they're always going to feel awful, and you know, you've
Speaker 1: got to learn because they're always going to be inside
Speaker 1: of you. That I remember Hodell talked about on a
Speaker 1: podcast that rock that we keep in our pocket. That
Speaker 1: is the grief rock. It's always with us, and we
Speaker 1: have to learn to just kind of put it gently
Speaker 1: back in that pocket, go ahead and be okay with
Speaker 1: carrying it around with us, but also know that we
Speaker 1: get used to having that rock and we learn to
Speaker 1: live with it in different ways. And for me personally,
Speaker 1: I'm comforted by that rock. I'm comforted by all the
Speaker 1: rocks of the people that I've lost. That might sound weird,
Speaker 1: but that's how I feel. I also wrote about working
Speaker 1: really hard in that entry, working to provide for my family. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I work to provide for my family. I don't work
Speaker 1: to buy Birken bags and Gucci belts, you know. I
Speaker 1: work to be able to continue providing for my family,
Speaker 1: taking them on trips, being able to travel places to
Speaker 1: visit my family in other cities. That's never going to
Speaker 1: change for me. That work ethic that I have and
Speaker 1: my priorities when it comes to spending. But a lot
Speaker 1: has changed since twenty nineteen. For me, I was out
Speaker 1: of work. I was just juggling, you know, trying to
Speaker 1: figure out what was next, and like throwing all the
Speaker 1: things on the wall and trying to figure out what
Speaker 1: was going to stick. But yeah, so much has changed.
Speaker 1: And I mean, now I have this podcast. I'm so
Speaker 1: happy to have this podcast. I have a clothing line
Speaker 1: that I do with my family. I have so many
Speaker 1: other opportunities because of all that. And I think it's
Speaker 1: because of that hard work. I think it's because of
Speaker 1: my priorities. And I'm pretty sure that my family knows that,
Speaker 1: and they see that and they recognize that. I know
Speaker 1: that Lola definitely acknowledges the hard work because she's part
Speaker 1: of the hard work. Now I've sucked her and she
Speaker 1: knows how hard it is to climb out of the
Speaker 1: trenches and be successful again and starting to create an
Speaker 1: income again. So I mean, I think it's important to
Speaker 1: let your family in on how hard you work and
Speaker 1: why you work so hard and why that's important to you.
Speaker 1: I Mean, the roughest part of that entry was when
Speaker 1: I'm not going to say who, but one of my
Speaker 1: daughters called me a narcissist. Oh, I don't think I'm
Speaker 1: a narcissist. And she also called me you guys, not
Speaker 1: as harsh. No mom wants to hear that. Nah huh no,
Speaker 1: thank you. And in your mind, you're like, after all,
Speaker 1: I do you? This is how you appreciate me, like,
Speaker 1: you know, the typical conversation. But she was young, and
Speaker 1: she was coping with a lot, and there was a
Speaker 1: lot of outside pressures put on her. And I never
Speaker 1: for a minute took that personally. I never for a
Speaker 1: minute held that against her because I knew she didn't
Speaker 1: mean it. I know she loves me. And sometimes kids
Speaker 1: got a vent, you know, they need to let stuff
Speaker 1: out too, And yeah, I tell I've told all my girls,
Speaker 1: do you need to start journaling? Don't feel better? Two
Speaker 1: of them do? Three of them actually do, but not consistently.
Speaker 1: And I think you know, I'm always saying, go back
Speaker 1: to your journaling. If you're struggling, get it out, because
Speaker 1: when you walk around with that stuff inside of you festering,
Speaker 1: it affects your experience throughout your day. It affects how
Speaker 1: you show up to other people and how you make
Speaker 1: other people feel and from my perspective, life is all
Speaker 1: about making the people you love or the people you
Speaker 1: encounter feel better about themselves and feel good. And I
Speaker 1: didn't come out of the womb knowing that. I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe I came out of the womb knowing that, because
Speaker 1: you know, we're so innocent, but I certainly lost sight
Speaker 1: of that for a long time. And now I'm able
Speaker 1: to really see what's so so important in life. And
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, it's not what you did,
Speaker 1: it's how you made people feel. And I still do
Speaker 1: not care for snakes. You guys, no, thank you. So
Speaker 1: there you have another journal entry from yours. Truly. I
Speaker 1: hope you guys liked it. I hope maybe some of
Speaker 1: the words resonate with you in some way, maybe jostle
Speaker 1: something up inside of you. Thanks for listening to that
Speaker 1: Chuesing podcast. I love you. I will be right here
Speaker 1: next week, and I hope you will choose to be
Speaker 1: here too,